VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Minnesota Wild need help on defense, and it appears no fresh troops will be arriving for the playoff stretch drive.

Instead, the Wild will turn to a pair of veterans whose ice time has been limited like never before, Sean Hill and Keith Carney.

“I want those guys to play more,” coach Jacques Lemaire said Thursday.

Not only more, but better — particularly Hill, who has struggled this season and missed many games although healthy. He is a minus-15 with just three assists in 27 games, and over his past five games, he’s a combined minus-7 with one assist.

“He’s got to play better; that’s a fact,” Lemaire said of Hill. “If he’s not playing better, we’ll be in trouble.”

With just eight regular-season games remaining, all against divisional opponents, the Wild face a mammoth challenge. They opened a three-point lead over three pursuers in the Northwest Division on Wednesday and play each of those teams twice more, starting tonight against the Vancouver Canucks at GM Place.

The Wild need Hill, 38, to shake off the cobwebs because Kurtis Foster is lying in a San Jose hospital bed, recuperating from surgery to repair a broken leg suffered Wednesday night in the Wild’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Sharks. He fractured the femur in his left thigh after being boarded by Torrey Mitchell as they chased an iced puck, reigniting the touch-icing debate from coast-to-coast.

“Unfortunately,” Hill said, “I’m getting the opportunity to play because someone got hurt. You hate to have it be that way, but now it’s important to step in and try to help out.

Foster had worked his way into a steady role as a top-six defenseman and reliable point man on the power play, playing in 31 of the Wild’s past 33 games. But now he’s out for the rest of the season, and someone has to pick up the slack.

The Wild did not call up a player from Houston on Thursday, and it doesn’t appear they will today. The Houston Aeros’ best defenseman is veteran minor leaguer Erik Reitz, who shares the team lead with 34 points (8-26—34) and is a plus-11 in 49 games. But he hurt an ankle on March 9 and has missed the past four games.

Lemaire doubted anyone else in Houston would be of use to the Wild at crunch time.

“I’m sure that one of the other guys can’t be that good to play in the NHL,” the coach said. “Not better than Sean.”

So Hill finally gets his chance. He missed the first 19 games of the season while fulfilling a suspension for testing positive for steroids last winter, then missed 10 games because of an ankle injury. He has been scratched 15 times and played Wednesday for the first time since March 6 and for just the third time in 10 games.

He was rusty enough to concern Lemaire, but he’s not the only one to earn the coach’s wrath this season. Carney, 38, played just 5:42 in his last game and has been scratched 20 times after playing 80 games last season.

Hill said it has been a difficult season.

“It’s tough enough to play when you’re coming in and out every few games; you know, play a couple, miss a couple. But that hasn’t been my situation,” he said. “So, definitely, to get in there and get more game time is going to obviously help me out. That’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Foster had been sharp playing the point recently, on the power play and at even strength. He set up the Wild’s first goal Wednesday with a heads-up wrist pass to Stephane Veilleux, eschewing a shot on goal when that would have been the easy thing to do.

Lemaire said he probably will move Kim Johnsson onto the power-play unit, pairing him with Brian Rolston or Pierre-Marc Bouchard. But consider that Johnsson played 30 minutes Wednesday while not playing the PP for more than a period.

That means Hill and Carney will need to increase their playing time. Hill averaged more than 22 minutes last season with the New York Islanders but this season is averaging less than 15:40. Carney, also 38, is averaging 13:16 and in his last game played just 5:42.

“I haven’t done this before in my career; it’s new to me,” Hill said. “Last year I played a ton, and this year is a completely new situation for me. When I’m playing, I’m not playing a lot of minutes, and then to sit out that much makes it that much more difficult.

“But I have to take it upon myself to make myself effective. I will work to get better at having a positive impact when I do play.”

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